


Invictus

by BelaBellissima



Series: Lady Lazarus [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence, Brother-Sister Relationships, Dead Robins Club, Gen, I know it seems romancey but please believe me that’s really not the intention, I mean if you wanna ship it then go ahead, Platonic Forehead Kisses, Resurrection, Sharing a Bed, but that’s not why I’m writing this series so you will probably be disappointed later, has a timeline in theory but probably not in practice, honestly its a mess of canon at this point, in a platonic way guys, picking and choosing from multiple canons/sources
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-03-12 15:41:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13550424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelaBellissima/pseuds/BelaBellissima
Summary: Out of the night that covers me,Black as the pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstanceI have not winced nor cried aloud.Under the bludgeonings of chanceMy head is bloody, but unbowed.- "Invictus" - William Ernest HenleyShe’s heard the stories, the mythos of Jason Todd passed down to her from Tim, passed down to him from Dick. But that’s the thing about myths, she thinks. They’ve got magic in them, inconsistencies that change things.Dick was always going to see Jason in a negative light because of how his name was taken, even if their relationship eventually got slightly better. Tim was always going to see Jason as a fallen god, an idol made human and killed, stolen from his throne of stars. Steph though, Steph is going to see the truth. She’s going to know the man behind the myth, because to her, he’s not the devil, he’s not an angel – he’s just a man.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [youngjusticewriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngjusticewriter/gifts).



> Yikes time really crept up on me whoops. I was planning on posting this about half an hour ago when it was still February 1st, since I have this series set to a timeline. So... sorry to anyone following it? because i'm going to post events when they would happen in the fic, assuming I finish each piece on time. I'll backdate them anyway if I do miss some.  
> I'm hoping to post the next chapter on March 1st, so happy waiting I guess :)
> 
> Many thanks to youngjusticewriter whose work inspired this series! I hope you like this one too! (btw all of them are going to be gifts to you I'm sorry I don't make the rules)
> 
> Title and poem from "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley.

She’s heard the stories, the mythos of Jason Todd passed down to her from Tim, passed down to him from Dick. But that’s the thing about myths, she thinks. They’ve got magic in them, inconsistencies that change things.

Dick was always going to see Jason in a negative light because of how his name was taken, even if their relationship eventually got slightly better. Tim was always going to see Jason as a fallen god, an idol made human and killed, stolen from his throne of stars. Steph though, Steph is going to see the truth. She’s going to know the man behind the myth, because to her, he’s not the devil, he’s not an angel – he’s just a man. A boy really – he’s only nineteen years old. And she’s only sixteen. Or seventeen maybe. She doesn’t know how long she’s been dead, or if it even counts as ageing.

What she does know is that Jason Todd is alive somehow and carrying her from the car into an apartment.

It hurts being held. Her right arm is dangling, and every step he takes makes it bounce uncomfortably. Her head is resting on his shoulder, and every time he shifts to grab a door or take another step up the stairs it makes her head throb. At one point her teeth clack together, catching her tongue briefly in a sharp burst of pain. The ironic part is that her teeth hurt more than her tongue – they’re still cracked from everything Black Mask had done.

Whatever had brought her back hadn’t healed her too, and Steph’s feeling every injury.

She opens her eyes blearily to watch Jason’s face as he unlocks an apartment door and pushes it open. He looks focused, almost angry even. Steph isn’t surprised. She’s angry too.

She misses Tim. She misses Bruce. She even kinda misses Dick.

Jason lowers her to the couch and disappears for a minute, returning with a med-kit and a glass of water. Steph doesn’t know what he thinks he can do for her with something as simple as a basic kit, but she isn’t going to complain.

He shakes out a few pain meds and grinds them up in front of her, dumping the powder into the glass of water. Holding the straw up to her lips, he holds her head gingerly as she drinks it down. It takes a few minutes to get through, but when she’s done she’s already feeling better. Her throat is no longer as dry as a desert and the most superficial of her injuries are starting to fade away.

Jason snags a pillow from the other end of the couch and tucks it under her head before setting himself down to patch her up. He has to gingerly cut away her funeral clothes, snipping away the dress to leave her in just her underclothes. He freezes for a moment, staring at the gruesome autopsy-Y scar sewn together. He has one too, Steph knows. It must be difficult to see it again.

He closes his eyes for a moment, then continues. The simple cuts (she almost laughs at her description of them. They aren’t _simple,_ but compared to everything else she’s endured? A few cuts are nothing) receive butterfly band-aids, the superficial bruises (again, not so much) an instant cold-pack, and her ribs are wrapped as tightly as Jason dares. After that he turns to her mouth, checking for any cracked or missing teeth he won’t really be able to fix anyway, but still wants to know about.

Her fingers come next. He gently rubs a burn crème into the digits, and the coolness that sinks into them makes Steph sigh in relief. After, he splints the broken ones as best he can and wraps each individual digit once, then wraps her four fingers together like a mitten, leaving her thumbs free.

He turns to her feet.

The soles are cut up and bruised: Sionis had been relentless in his effort to ensure that even should she live, she would never walk again. There’s a spark in Jason’s eyes though, and Steph has a feeling that he is going to push her and make her work until she beats it, until she proves Sionis wrong by walking and running and _fighting_ again. Steph loves that spark, but realistically, Sionis had taken more than just the soles of her feet.

After Jason finishes attending to the cuts and bruises and rubbing more healing crème into her soles, he turns to the open wound where her left pinky toe used to reside. Steph swallows painfully as Jason’s fingers probe the area gently, taking a wet q-tip to clean away some of the fresh blood that had begun pumping out again the moment she woke up.

He stitches it up after, and it takes everything in Steph to not jerk her foot away at every prick of the needle. Jason is almost uncomfortably silent in the face of her pain. Steph is just glad she doesn’t have to talk yet.

When he’s done patching her up, Jason moves her from the living room couch to his bedroom, setting her down as gently as he can on his bed. She tries her best to hold in how much it hurts, but she isn’t sure she succeeds. He digs around in his dresser, presumably for some clothes. He carefully slides a pair of warm socks over her feet when he returns, and Steph has to make herself not laugh at the fact that there are little birds sewn into the design. She settles for sending a half-amused look at him, smiling when he rolls his eyes in return and sits closer to her head.

“This is going to hurt, Stephanie,” he warns, as if him patching her up wasn’t painful as well. He props her up so that he can slide a t-shirt over her head. The arms hurt the most, but she’s willing to put up with it – she’s still freezing, and the fact that Jason just seems to know that is a godsend. The sweatpants come next, Jason doing his best not to make her uncomfortable as he helps pull them up.

He stands and pulls the bed-covers up the instant he’s done helping her with the sweatpants, looking away from her in an attempt to placate her pride. She could’ve laughed – sure, she has pride, but not to the level of Bruce. She isn’t afraid to admit she needs help, even if it is embarrassing.

“I’ll let you get some rest,” Jason murmurs as he fixes the top of the covers so that it isn’t covering her chin but isn’t letting any cold air in either. He presses another kiss to her forehead, brushing a curl of hair away from her face. Steph feels at peace for the first time since before Bruce fired her, and it shows when a small hum escapes her as she sighs in contentment.

That hum raises in pitch sharply when Jason steps back and toward the door, presumably to leave her alone. She doesn’t want to be alone.

She _really_ doesn’t want to be alone.

Being alone was a staple of her life, and it was an omen of bad things to come. She had been alone her whole childhood – Arthur off in prison and her mom too high half the time to notice anything. She had been alone during the quake, abandoned by Dean to fend for herself, at least until Huntress found her. She had thought she’d been alone going into labor, and she had never held her baby. She had been alone, locked out of the cave when she’d started the war, just trying to be let back in. She’d been alone when she’d been tortured for days, and she’d died alone.

Jason freezes, looking at her in concern while she attempts to reach for him with her injured and trapped arm. He frowns slightly when he realizes what it is that she is asking for, but returns to her side never-the-less, sitting down and reclining against the headboard.

She turns, painfully, slowly, pushing on until she is completely on her right side, her nose pressing against the outside of Jason’s left thigh. She frowns and huffs at him, her trapped arm repeatedly trying to sling over his legs, despite the clear impossibility of the act. Jason sighs, kicking off his own shoes and sliding under the covers as well, so that he is laying down alongside Steph.

She sighs happily, pushing her nose into his ribs and finally managing to sling her arm over his stomach, effectively trapping him there with her. His left arm wraps around her back, holding her semi-tightly against him.

“Better?” he mumbles, a quirk of laughter present in the sound. Steph nods and hums in complete seriousness, ignoring the humorous jab in favor of closing her eyes. Steph smiles softly when he shifts, and a moment later she feels the warm press of his lips to her forehead.

She’s asleep in seconds.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first official meeting of the Dead Robins Club ft. lots of healing and lots of talking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is like over two months late but hey at least it's here?  
> special shout out to [highvalour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/highvalour/pseuds/highvalour) for your comments because they were my main motivation for actually getting this done

“Hey there,” Jason says, laying a hand on Steph’s shoulder to gently wake her up from her nap. She’s been spending most of her recovery days sleeping, her body exhausted from how much its striving to do. It’s already been a full week of constant care and recuperation, and Jason has been there every figurative step of the way. Steph hasn’t been able to actually stand yet on her own, but Jason has been moving her legs and arms when she couldn’t to keep her muscles from atrophying, rubbing healing crèmes into her skin to alleviate the pain of her burns and bruises, and changing the bandages on her cuts and stitches on her toe when it started to look infected.

Steph smiles at him, her eyes lidded. She hasn’t been able to talk strongly yet either, but she has been attempting it when Jason isn’t around.

“Do you want to try to make it to the bathroom today?” Jason asks, and Steph debates for a moment but ultimately nods softly. Jason helps her sit up, and when she tentatively touches her bare feet to the carpet and puts part of her weight on them, she’s relieved to find that her legs don’t give out under her, that her feet don’t spike with pain. There’s a dull throb, but it’s nothing she can’t ignore.

Jason helps pull her to her feet, keeping her balanced as she wobbles a bit, then with an arm around her waist, leads her down the hall to the small bathroom, one slow step at a time. He helps her sit down on the edge of the tub when her balance leaves her, brushing her hair out of her face with his fingers quickly.

“You okay from here?” he asks, and Steph nods. “M’kay. I’m gonna head out and pick up some food for lunch. We’re going to have a guest over in about an hour. I’ll be back well before then.”

Jason leaves her alone after that, and Steph waits until she hears the front door of the apartment close before stripping slowly and turning on the water to fill the tub. The water is warm, and Steph sighs in contentedness as she sinks into it. Most of the wounds on her legs and torso are closed, if not completely healed, but she still has to leave her foot out of the water to keep her stiches from getting wet. It makes her toes feel extra cold, and Steph curls them tightly for a moment.

She winces just a little at the throb of pain, but it’s not enough to make her truly uncomfortable, so she doesn’t let the stretch until another few seconds have passed.

“Hurts so good,” she laugh-whispers to the empty room.

She runs through her basic voice exercises while she soaks, until her throat is once again hoarse and her mood lifted from the amount of time she has managed to speak. The day before, she had only been able to speak for fifteen minutes, but today her throat doesn’t begin to protest until the twenty-minute mark.

She hears the door to the apartment open and Jason calls out that it’s him, so she drains the tub and gets dressed, hobbling her way out to the living room while leaning heavily against the wall. Jason is facing away from her in the tiny kitchenette, fixing lunch for the two of them. His body blocks it at first, but when he finally moves out of the way Steph sees two bowls of pasta shells, soft enough for her to chew without much pain, but small enough that if it does end up being too much, she can swallow them whole, one or two at a time.

After eating, Jason takes their bowls to the kitchen for washing, but on the way, someone knocks on the door. Steph can’t do anything about it, at least nowhere near as quickly as he can, so in the time it takes her to simply stand up, Jason has already set the bowls in the sink and made it to the door. He glances through the peephole and unlocks the bolt, opening the door widely for whoever was on the other side.

Steph thinks it’s a woman, but she can’t really be sure. They are dressed from head to toe in black, loose clothes. Their face is covered with a balaclava, and at their sides are twin swords. Steph wonders for a moment how they even made it to the door without someone seeing them and asking questions.

They pull their face mask down, revealing their eyes and forehead like one of Steph’s Spoiler mask designs did before she went with the full covering. After, they reach into a bag at their hip Steph hadn’t noticed before, pulling out purple plastic gloves that look shockingly bright against the rest of their outfit.

Jason closes the door after they enter, gesturing to where Steph waits in the living room, and the person walks in with barely a sound. It’s both impressive and very intimidating.

They gently push on Steph’s shoulders until she sits on the couch again, then again until she’s laying down. Steph looks warily to Jason, but he just nods at her.

“She was a dentist before joining Talia,” he says. “She’ll fix your teeth up.”

Steph casts one last wary glance at the assassin above her, but when she pulls out a clear plastic mask and some knockout gas, Steph lets her fit it over her nose and mouth.

Waking up is like clawing through water, but once she finally breaks the surface back into full awareness, Steph realizes she can’t feel her mouth at all, which is really, really annoying. The dentist assassin is gone, and Jason is sitting out on the fire escape, unaware that Steph is awake again. She stands and heads to the bathroom, and gingerly pulls her numb lips away from her teeth. There are cotton swabs stuffed in her cheeks that Steph leaves in, but she still opens her mouth to see how the actual teeth look, at least from the inside. Her missing teeth are back, though they’re clearly false, but they feel sturdy enough when she presses her tongue against them. Of course, she can’t feel her tongue, so for all she knows the false teeth are loose and she would have no clue. Either way, her teeth finally look like they did pre-Black Mask. It’s a good feeling, but tears are gathering in her eyes. She staunchly refuses to let them fall, blaming it on the numbing drugs.

* * *

In the following days, it gets easier and easier to talk. Her throat gets stronger with practice, and having a full set of teeth of course helps. Steph finds she can’t stop running her tongue over them. Even though she knows which are fake, and can see the difference if she looks closely, they feel as real as any of the others. She’s able to chew harder things for longer times, and at the end of the first week since the dentist assassin fixed her up, Steph is eating chips and pan-crust pizza and home-fried chicken. She’s not quite to peanut brittle or anything, but well, she’s never liked peanut brittle anyway, so it’s not that big of a hinderance.

Halfway through February, the cold of winter finally lets go of Gotham, shifting into the weird, middle ground between the bitter cold of winter and the refreshing cold of early spring. It’s enough of a raise in temperature that she begins following Jason outside onto the fire escape and the roof during the afternoon. It strengthens her muscles over a few days enough that she can finally stand for up to ten minutes without needing to lean on Jason or the wall, and she can very slowly walk around the apartment with no problems. On the 22nd of February, she walks alongside Jason one block to the store, and on the way back, is able to carry some of the bags. She’s incredibly winded afterwards and needs to lay down for a few hours, but it’s a start.

That night, she’s finally able to take a shower on her own, instead of taking a bath or requiring Jason’s help. Her balance has returned almost completely and her foot is healed, the stitches removed. Before this night, Jason has helped her wash her hair in the sink, so the feel of running water over her skin for the first time since she has been brought back is the best feeling in the world.

When she’s done, Steph hobbles to the living room, still incredibly sore from their short walk. She’s wearing Jason’s clothes, large and baggy on her due to their different frames. She leans against a corner and watches him for a few minutes. He’s in the kitchen, half dancing around as he moves between the stove and the oven. There’s music coming through a small speaker – the radio’s playing an oldies station; half the sound is just static, but the other half is a shift between smooth jazz-like tones and soft rock. A Beatles song comes on, and Jason hums along as he flips whatever food he’s cooking in the pan on the stove. Steph smiles. She hadn’t thought any of the bats would be domestic, but Jason’s proving her wrong in almost everything.

He finally turns around when he empties the pan onto two plates on the opposite counter. He must notice her, even though he doesn’t react, instead only returning the now empty pan to the stove and opening the oven to take out the dish being kept warm inside.

Steph makes her way to the couch, flopping down into the corner seat and propping her feet onto the cushion next to her.

Jason comes out a minute later and hands her a plate with a close-mouthed smile, taking the seat next to her. Steph pushes her feet out, stretching until they dig under his thighs. He rolls his eyes but lifts a leg slightly so that she can slip them under to keep them warm.

“Why don’t you just get a pair of socks if you’re cold?”

Steph smirks. So far, he hasn’t heard her speak anything other than that first ‘thank you’ at the grave, and as far as she knows, has no clue that she’s been practicing, quietly expanding her vocal strength again until she was confident she could speak full sentences without her voice cracking halfway through.

“Because this is more fun than getting up and getting some, Jason.”

His head whips to the side in surprise, and he lets out an astonished laugh, looking at her with wonder in his eyes. Steph likes the feeling. “I didn’t realize your throat had healed yet.”

Steph nods. “Yeah. It’s taken awhile but I can finally speak again.” She takes a bite of the food. Flavor explodes in her mouth, warm and rich with a smooth texture. She thinks it’s some kind of beef stir-fry. The slice of cornbread next to it looks like it was handmade, not just some recipe pre-mixed from a box, and she takes a bite of that afterwards.

“Stephanie,” Jason begins.

“Just Steph is fine,” she interrupts. “Well, my friends call me Steph, at least.”

“Steph,” Jason corrects with a quirk to his lips. “I’ve tried to put this off for as long as possible, but I think you need to explain some stuff to me. There’s a lot that I don’t know about you.”

Steph sighs. “Yeah, I guess. What do you want to know first?”

Jason waits for her to take another bite before requesting the information. He wants to know everything apparently – how she became Robin, how she died, if she knows yet how she came back to life, what she knows about him.

She tells him about her father to start the story, about how he was the Cluemaster, and all she ever wanted to do was see him brought to justice.

“I hit Tim in the head with a brick once,” draws a laugh out of Jason. “He pulled my mask off within a minute of meeting me. He pretty much had me trapped on my back and was pinning me, so I just reached out, found a brick somehow, and whacked him with it.”

After that, she tells about her pregnancy, how Tim was there for her, even though his dad moved their family to Keystone, and then when his dad found out about Robin and made him quit, she hand sewed her own Girl Wonder costume and broke into the cave, demanding to be the new Robin.

“Well if nothing else, you’ve got guts,” Jason comments.

“Says the boy who stole the Batmobile’s tires,” Steph jokes, happy when Jason rolls his eyes and chuckles.

“Anyway, after that, I disobeyed B and he fired me, even locked me out of the cave. I just wanted to prove him wrong, so I stole one of his contingency plans to eradicate all crime, but I didn’t know that he was Matches Malone. When ‘Matches’ didn’t show, eventually a gang war broke out. Black Mask caught me.”

She pauses, taking another bite of the food. She really doesn’t want to talk about this part, but Jason asked, so she will. It’s really the least she can do for him.

“He had me for a few days. Apparently, B was too busy with the gang war I’d started to notice I was missing or something. I had to save myself. I got out of his restraints and managed to get him on his back. I had his gun in my hands. I almost shot him.”

Steph stares blankly at her food as she remembers that moment, holding the sleek handgun against Roman’s skull and him goading her to just pull the trigger and shoot him already.

“He grabbed the gun from me and threw me off. Then he shot me.” Her voice trails off as she lifts a hand to press absently at the healing bullet wound under her left collarbone. Jason hadn’t needed to patch it up on the night he found her, since it was still stitched together from Leslie’s work, but Steph knows he saw it, even without making a comment about it. It’s impossible to miss, just like the autopsy Y scar they share.

“He left me there to bleed out, but I escaped and made it to Leslie’s. B finally did find me there, but it was too late. Leslie did everything she could. Wasn’t enough.”

She stares at the floor for a moment, pushing a bite of beef back and forth on her plate. Jason makes a noise, a choked off sound that immediately draws her attention. He looks murderous, a fury glinting in his eyes as he sets down his own plate haphazardly and stands up, stalking out of the living room back to the kitchen. He takes a minute to come back, two glasses of water in his hands. Handing one to her wordlessly, he nods his head for her to continue.

“I don’t know how I came back. One moment I was dead, then next I wasn’t. I didn’t even realize I’d died for about a minute, until after I realized I was in a coffin. I thought I might’ve been blinded or something. As for knowing about you, I’ve heard stories.”

Jason hums, a small little questioning sound.

“Tim idolizes you. Dick regrets a lot, but not nearly as much as I think he should. Dick talked to Tim, Tim talked to me, then you gave me that final hint when you dug me up. You look like a carbon copy of them, then you mentioned being the last. Wasn’t that hard to put together.”

Jason sighs and leans back. His glass tilts with the movement and a few drops splash out.

“But,” Steph adds on, “I’d still like to know from your perspective.”

Jason takes a sip of water, debating where to begin.

“Well, I guess it starts with having an addict for a mom. She was high most of the time, Willis was off in prison, left me to fend for myself a lot. After they both died, I did whatever I had to do to survive. Ended up stealing those tires, as you know. B took me in, made me Robin, and started driving me away just like he did Dick. After a fight one day I took a walk, returned to my childhood apartment and discovered my birth certificate. Turns out my mom Catherine wasn’t the woman who actually gave birth to me, so I tracked her down. She sucked. I died trying to protect her like an idiot.”

“What did she do?” Steph asks, genuinely curious. She’s never heard this part of the story before. Dick and Bruce both refused to talk about it, and therefore Tim didn’t know, so there was no way she would have ever heard it.

“She sold me out to the Joker. She tried, in the end, I think. Tried to get me help, but she died only a few minutes after I did. Next thing I know I feel like I’m drowning as I fight my way out of a Lazarus pit. Talia told me I’d been in a waking coma for over a year before she put me in, but I have no memory of any of it.”

“How long ago was that?” Steph asks, almost scared to hear the answer. How long had Jason been on his own?

“About a year and a half ago. Just after I would’ve turned seventeen, I think. I died when I was fifteen, dug my way out sometime after my sixteenth birthday, Talia found me a few months after that, put me in the pit shortly after my seventeenth birthday. I spent the next year and a half training with her and her hand-picked tutors until a month ago. She’s… not that bad. Nowhere near as bad as her father, at least. She did get me training from a group of ancient assassins called the All-Caste. That’s pretty cool.”

Steph nods. “And after that? You came back here and dug me up. How did you know?”

Jason shrugs. “The leader of the All-Caste, Ducra, she told me as I was getting ready to leave that I needed to get back to Gotham. She had magic somehow, never really did figure out how, even though I can kinda use it sometimes to summon some swords. But anyway, she told me to ‘look for the mirror in the ground’ which is complete bullshit, because if you’re trying to tell someone that a person’s coming back to life, you’d think you would say their name, when they’re coming back, and where they’re buried. Not Ducra, though.”

Jason sighs in fond exasperation. “Either way, I figured it out. Someone exactly like me was dead, and soon wouldn’t be. I figured out who you were, stole a shovel, and started digging. You just happened to wake up right when I was near the bottom.”

“Lucky me.”

 “Depends on how you see it,” Jason counters. “I guess we are both lucky Ducra told me, that you didn’t have to dig your way out like I did, but as for actually being back? Not everything is as great as I remembered.”

Steph bites her lip, then releases it to take a bite of food instead. She chews slowly, thinking over Jason’s words. She doesn’t really agree – being alive again is amazing to her, despite all of the pain she’s suffering through as she heals. At least she’s alive to feel it.

But… Jason’s been alive again far longer than she has been, and she hates to think that maybe he has some knowledge she doesn’t have that makes his words right. She doesn’t want them to be right.

“Why do you say that? What’s so bad about being alive again?”

Jason huffs a laugh. “Well, for starters, being replaced sucks.”

Oh.

He’s talking about Tim.

“Relax, Stephanie. I know you care about the Replacement, but from my end? Bruce replaced me as if I didn’t even matter. Like I was nothing to him.”

Steph shakes her head as forcefully as she dares. “But he loves you Jason. Not a day goes by that he doesn’t regret not being there for you. He has this memorial for you, so that every day he can look at it and remember and never make the same mistake again. You changed him in ways none of us could even come close to.”

Jason shrugs. “Maybe. Yet that didn’t stop him from bringing in some new kid before I was even cold in the ground, just like he did you.”

Steph’s face loses all tension as it goes blank, forcing all emotion off of her face. “What?”

“He replaced you too, Steph. I looked you up, remember? You died on November 9th, three months before you were resurrected on February 1st. You were running around as Robin only four months ago. And when you were dying? Lying in that hospital bed? There was already another Robin out on the streets. Get it? He replaced you too, Stephanie, _before_ you were even dead.”

Okay. Well then. It’s not like Steph didn’t think he wouldn’t do it eventually. She was never under the impression that Robin would be hers for the rest of her life. But before she was even dead? While she was still dying at the clinic? Had he really told her she was Robin while there was another running around Gotham already?

Unless… it was Tim. Because she wouldn’t be too upset with that. His dad had made him quit, and if he had lifted that restriction, then why wouldn’t he be Robin again? It only made sense. So… she couldn’t really be mad.

But only if it was Tim.

“Who was it? Was it the same guy who replaced you? Was it Tim?”

Jason’s eyes narrow slightly, but he nods. Steph lets out a deep breath.

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Are you not mad?” Jason asks, like he can’t understand why she isn’t.

Steph shakes her head. “No. If it was anyone else, I’d be furious, but since it’s Tim? Nah. He’s a pretty great Robin, and the only reason I got the job in the first place was because his actual dad made him quit. In the face of the war I started I’m not surprised Tim either just ignored his dad or the restriction was lifted.”

Jason shakes his head. “I just can’t feel the same. Even if he did idolize me, he still was my replacement. And yes, I know that’s on Bruce mostly, not a kid, but…” Jason sighs. “I’m still frustrated.”

“And what about me?”

Jason immediately shakes his head. “It’s not the same with you. I know this won’t exactly make you feel better or anything, but the fact that Bruce treated you like an outsider goes a long way to making me like you more. You and I? We’re the Dead Robins, the family fuck-ups. I couldn’t dislike you even if I tried. We’re too alike.”

Steph snorts. “Glad to hear it,” quips, trying to be annoyed, but honestly? She finds it pretty morbidly funny. Literally.

They finish eating the rest of dinner in silence, but after Steph takes their plates to the kitchen and rejoins Jason on the couch, she asks, “So what are your plans in Gotham now?”

Jason’s face darkens. “I’m going to make Bruce finally understand how wrong he is. And…” Jason looks to Steph for a moment, judging her reaction, “I’m going to make him finally kill the Joker.”

Oh. Well then.

“I… see,” Steph says. It’s not like she couldn’t see this coming, honestly. He had literally just told her he’d spent over a year working with Talia Al Ghul, and apparently still has a strong enough relationship with the Daughter of the Demon to borrow some of her assassins for comparatively mundane things.

“Is that going to be a problem?”

Steph has to think for a minute, then slowly shakes her head. She’s not going to fault Jason for this, not when she herself almost killed her own father when she was first getting started as Spoiler, and definitely not when she was so close to pulling the trigger on Black Mask even after being finally accepted by Bruce. She doesn’t have room to judge.

“Good,” Jason nods once, closing the matter. “I was going to start soon anyway, but I’ll wait for you to be healed first. If things go wrong, I want you to be able to get away. Are you… are you going to tell Bruce that you’re back?”

Steph shakes her head again. “No. I think I’ll stick around and see what happens with your plan.”

Jason sends her a weak smile, then reaches out to grab her shoulder. Steph leans into the gesture while it’s there, even though her shoulders are still sore from carrying two bags of groceries.  

“I know it’s not very Bat of me to do,” Jason says, but Steph interrupts.

“It’s like you said. We’re the family fuck-ups. I had my own doubts when I was first starting out, and you know they never really went away. I just pushed them down for Tim and Bruce’s sake. Maybe if I hadn’t died I would feel different about it, but… I did. So,” Steph shrugs to finish the sentence.

Jason dips his head in understanding, standing afterward and tilting his head back to his room.

“You want the bed tonight?”

Steph grins wryly at him. “You really need a guest room,” she says, smiling wider when Jason rolls his eyes. “I’ll take the couch tonight. I’ve stolen your bed enough already.”

Jason leans down to kiss her forehead – something Steph likes – then ruffles her hair a bit as he leaves – something Steph does not nearly like as much. Jason chuckles as she pushes her hair back out of her face and shoots him a playful glare.

“Sleep well Blondie,” Jason calls back to her as he enters his bedroom and shuts the door behind him. Steph can hear his amusement in his damn voice.

“Oh that better not become a thing,” she says to the empty room. On the other side of the door, Steph can hear Jason laughing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steph vs. the touch-starved-asaurus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took way longer than it was supposed to, and it really isn't edited all that much (at all) but I just wanted it published already so I could move on to some new stuff!  
> Enjoy:)

Steph notices four days after their heart-to-heart.

She’s still injured, three weeks on her own isn’t nearly enough to heal everything, even though she can now walk and talk for a few hours at a time. Steph knows she’s probably going to be stuck in physical therapy and under close monitoring for at least half a year as she heals, but she’s able to hobble around for a few minutes at a time, and she’s able to talk, even though she finds the silence to be just as good as the noise, if not better.

It’s strange, almost. Jason touches her quite often, even when not doing something to aid in her recovery. He’ll brush a hand through her hair or let his fingers drift reassuringly across her shoulders, so light and quick as he walks behind her on his way to some other room in his apartment that Steph gets the feeling he doesn’t realize that he’s doing it.

That doesn’t even go into the whole forehead kiss thing. He’s done it once or twice every single day she’s been alive, usually as she’s handing him a plate from her spot on the couch or when she’s sliding into her side of the bed and he helps pull the covers around her.

Other than that though, he keeps his distance.

Steph can tell though that he doesn’t want to.

She can also tell he doesn’t realize it.

She recognizes the behavior – Tim was incredibly similar when they first started dating, like he craved the contact but was also scared to initiate it, and when he finally got it? Oh, when he finally got it he treated it like it was heavenly, some angelic gift of which he was undeserving. He had always melted into her touch, unknowing of his actions.

And now Jason is the same, so touch-starved that he doesn’t even realize what he is missing.

It makes Steph sad. The notion that these two men are lacking in something as normal as physical contact makes her want to latch on in a giant hug and never let go, but she also knows that she can’t push them into it too quickly. It took weeks before Tim was finally comfortable enough to hold her hand for even an extended length of time – she has a feeling that Jason’s going to take even longer, that he’s going to take _months._

It’s such a good thing she has the time.

She starts out small, three more days after the discovery.

She stands close to Jason when he cooks dinner one night, close enough that he can feel the heat from her body against his arm. It seems to make him tense, but he also doesn’t fight it. Steph takes it as a win, and does the same thing the next night and the night after, again and again every night and afternoon for the next two weeks, until it doesn’t even phase him anymore, until he begins to relax _more_ when she’s next to him than when she’s away.

She begins to let her touch ghost across him every once in a while – when reaching for the remote, she’ll keep her hand low so that it brushes his knee, when relaxing on the couch, she’ll let her arm fall so that their fingers touch, when standing next to him cooking, she’ll lean in just enough for a second of contact.

It seems like Jason figures it out quickly. He still is unprepared at first, he still tenses a little whenever there is contact, but eventually he begins to accept it, to not react, to not even notice the touches after another three weeks.

She still spends almost every night in his bed. Sometimes he takes the couch, sometimes Steph tries to sleep in the newly set up guest room, but each time it only lasts for three nights at most before one of them realizes that they just sleep _better_ with the other around. It’s strange, because before she met him Steph really hated having other people in the room with her while she slept. There was just something about the vulnerability or having another person so close while she was defenseless, but now with Jason it feels safe.

She thinks it has something to do with them both having gone through similar experiences. The idea of sleeping in the same room as Tim still gives her a sense of anxiety, and she trusts him like no one else.

Her next step takes place in the dark at night, in the very bed they both pretend they don’t _need_ to share.

Steph waits for Jason to fall asleep. It takes a long time – he’s aware that she’s awake so he tries to stay awake with her to see if it’s because she wants to talk. Once he realizes that she’s just not tired (even though she is, actually. She’s exhausted, but she’s determined), he drifts off.

Steph has to time this perfectly – if he’s too awake, he’ll freak out, but if he’s too deep into sleep, it won’t do him any good. She waits for that perfect blend, for when he’s drifting and in a state of semi-wakefulness, and then she slides her foot out, across the gap between them. It’s the first time the gap has ever been bridged – even in sleep they’d stayed on their own sides as if there was a barrier between them – and Steph almost jolts when her foot finally brushes his.

He’s warmer than she was expecting, so she continues pushing her foot out, until her ankle is hooked over his. Jason gives a sleepy grumble, He can feel the contact, but his semi-conscious mind has regarded it as not a threat to him, so he never truly wakes up. He shifts, turning over on his side to face Steph, but his ankle stays hooked around hers.

Steph smiles and finally sleeps.

In the morning, somehow, they’re still connected. Jason’s helped bridge the gap some, so instead of Steph’s foot reaching all the way across, they’re both only going halfway. Jason’s back is to her, still far away on his side of the bed, but it’s a start.

It’s another week of this before Steph realizes that Jason’s been leaving his foot extended when he slips into sleep, long before Steph ever tries to reach out. She doesn’t think he’s doing it on purpose, which is another battle she’s preparing to face, but none-the-less, the fact that Jason has begun to seek her out subconsciously means he’s not in as bad a place as before.

The next night, as they sit on the couch eating the delicious dinner Jason cooked for them while watching a horrible SyFy original movie, Steph leans over and rests her head on his shoulder.

Jason goes incredibly still. His hand is hovering halfway between his mouth and his plate, and even though his head doesn’t move, Steph can feel his eyes on her.

“Is this okay?” she asks. She doesn’t want to push him too far if it means he’s this uncomfortable.

Jason nods his head slowly. “Yeah,” he eventually makes out, stabbing a bit more food onto his fork as he continues eating. “It’s fine.”

His shoulder lowers a bit as he relaxes, making it much easier on Stephanie’s neck.

“Thanks,” she says.

 _Yes!_ She thinks.

The next night, she does it again, this time curling her legs up underneath her so that her knees press against Jason’s thighs. He doesn’t make any outward reaction, but Steph sees the stunned emotion in his eyes. He’s beginning to figure it out, Steph realizes. Not what she’s doing, but his own touch-starved nature.

He leans his head down onto hers for a minute. It’s not as long as she’s done it, not even close, but he’s making the move himself, reciprocating the easy touch consciously.

The next night, Steph cautiously wraps her arms around his when she leans against him. He takes his free hand to brush her hair out of her face, where it had fallen in front of her eyes as she tucked in against him. Stephanie can’t help but smile into his arm.

She figures it’s enough progress for one week and doesn’t push again for the next few days.

When she starts up again, it’s at breakfast, sixteen weeks into their time together, a whole three months since she came back to life. Jason’s in the kitchen like he usually is when she wakes up, frying some eggs in a pan. There’s a paper towel on the counter next to him with a pile of bacon on it, making Steph roll her eyes.

She grabs a plate from the cupboard and transfers them over, swiping another paper towel over the oil and condensation spot on the counter.

“Jason,” she complains, drawing the word out as she slides right up against him, nudging her way under his arm so that she can wrap her arms around his waist. “Plates are a thing. Please don’t dirty your own counters to save washing a single dish.”

Jason just rolls his eyes and lets his free hand settle onto the small of her back, his thumb rubbing back and forth gently.

“What does it matter, Steph? I always clean up afterward anyway.”

She buries her head playfully into him. “It’s just extra work for you though. If you were to just grab a plate before you started cooking, you wouldn’t have to wipe down your counters after you were done.”

Jason just flips the eggs one-handed onto the plate as well, burying the strips of bacon under the fluffy yellow food. He rolls his eyes when he thinks she’s not looking, and with a burst of courage, she leans up and presses a kiss to his cheek.

“Don’t give me that sass,” she laughs, then spins away to let him process.

He doesn’t react the way she’s expecting him to – frozen in shock for a moment as his brain catches up to the present. He just shakes his head in humor, a smile quirking his lips as he rolls his eyes again.

“You think you’re sneaky,” he says, “but I’m on to you Blondie. You’re… _training me.”_ He scowls playfully at her, thankfully not upset.

Steph props her hands on her hips and tilts her head to answer. “And how long ago did you figure it out?”

Jason shrugs. “A week.”

Steph tries not to laugh. “And how long do you think I’ve been doing it?”

He hesitates for a moment before answering nonchalantly, “April.”

She does laugh this time. “Try February.”

Jason leaves the kitchen quickly, trying to hide the slight pink tinge to his cheeks. A terrifying and skilled vigilante he may be, but he was also still a teenager.

Steph follows him out with the plates and cutlery, taking her usual place next to him.

“Do you want me to stop?” she asks, serious once again. She wants to help him, but if he is uncomfortable, she’s not going to rush him or purposefully distress him.

The pink in his cheeks darkens a smidge, and he shakes his head, stuffing his mouth full of eggs to avoid saying it aloud. Steph smiles and leans against him to finish eating her breakfast.

Their lives still suck, she’s still in pain half the day, and Jason is patiently waiting for justice, but on that morning, everything is calm and peaceful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so in theory this chapter ends around mid to late may? just roll with it please lol
> 
> Also this is the last chapter of this work, but the next in the series will be coming soon hopefully. If you want to read more, don't forget to subscribe to the series itself!
> 
>  
> 
> [Find me online](https://linktr.ee/belabellissima)

**Author's Note:**

> [Find me online :)](https://linktr.ee/belabellissima)


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